Start Up Company Design – VetPharm Pharmaceuticals
This start up company design case study for VetPharm Pharmaceuticals is a demonstration of how working with a business from the initial development meetings through to full launch and beyond.
Working with the VetPharm Directors, we produced a series of brand designs while they prepared the company for launch. All the directors were leaving positions within the pharmaceutical sector and would be under contractual embargo with regards existing contacts. Having the brand design and website ready to go from day one allowed them to begin to attract new contacts while honouring their contracts.
The project was typical in its nature in that those involved were experts at developing products and getting them to market, but hadn’t previously been involved in the design and marketing. Due to the sensitive nature of the relationship with their previous employer, they needed to make employ a new freelance graphic designer who would help understand their vision and work with them as they formulated the new company.
We began work by researching similar global businesses and examining their corporate identities. From the research we established that our new identity had to be flexible enough to reach a range of very different customers.
VetPharm went on to bring a number of original new products to market alongside mass produced animal health medicines such as Ivermectin. These products were sold on global market with particular strength in Vietnam/Korea, the Middle East and Africa. as well as commercial farming products, we developed packaging for the domestic pet market.
Alongside the packaging range, we produced sales literature, exhibitions, websites, including mini-sites to target niche products and I even helped art direct various photoshoots in their Uk and Irish production facilities.
As they matured, VetPharm introduced an in-house manufacturing department which was capable of inventing and testing new products. As moved away from the initial start up company design we explored the best way to sell to these countries and how the cultures responded to colour and design. For example, the African market responded to images of the animals on the packaging, primarily because a lot of the farming population are illiterate and the Middle Eastern market responded to metallic finishes and colours as they represented quality.
Being able to acquire the relevant export licenses for numerous countries, VetPharm emerged as a partner for many larger companies. After 10 years of successful growth, VetPharm was sold to US pharmaceutical giant Bimeda who continue to sell and develop the many innovate products. As part of the hand over, I worked closely with the Bimeda team in Chicago to convert all the VetPharm packaging over to the US design.
